Attendees from all over the world enjoyed some exciting keynotes and could choose between over 70 different sessions spread over 2 sunlit days. what more do you need to make a big data aficionado happy?
Next to the opportunity to meet hundreds of fellow Hadoop believers, I particularly enjoyed the flood of news and insights by technology vendors, customers and analysts. Here are some of the highlights:
- Forrester Research analyst Mike Gualtieri explained how Apache Hadoop became technology’s darling: it disrupts the economics of data and enables far more powerful applications in the future. Hadoop is growing into an application platform and is taking all the necessary steps to fulfill this role. Just have a look at all the measures that are being taken in the area of data governance, data quality and security.
- Yahoo’s VP Engineering, Peter Cnudde, gave Hadoop a face. Yahoo is what can be called an ‘early adopter’. They have been using Hadoop for 10 years now. Though Hadoop was initially only used for web search, it has gradually spread throughout the company and is now being used in several ambitious machine learning projects. According to Peter Cnudde, machine learning is the base of innovation and will eventually change society.
- And of course: our very own Mark Torr aptly demonstrated the interaction between SAS technology and Hadoop. In a nutshell: Hadoop can be used as an engine in the background of SAS number crunching processes, SAS can be used as an interface to manipulate Hadoop data more easily, and moreover SAS can treat Hadoop just as any other data source.
One thing is for sure: Hadoop is here to stay and will become increasingly important for anyone involved in data handling and data analysis. And, judging from all input we received and all encounters we have had, it will also be more fun than ever!